Biggest bats taking Yankees to higher level
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This is the way the Yankees drew it up with Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. It’s just that they drew things up this way a couple of years ago. Judge had just hit 52 home runs for the Yankees in 2017. Stanton had hit 59 home runs for the Marlins. The Yankees traded for Stanton, and immediately Yankees fans began doing the math on the home run possibilities for the two of them at the new Yankee Stadium.
No team since the 1962 Yankees, with Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle, ever had two 50-home run guys on the same team at the same time. Judge and Stanton were going to permanently alter the baseball skyline, and not just in New York.
| Game | Date | Result | Highlights |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gm 1 | Oct. 5 | NYY 9, TB 3 | Watch |
| Gm 2 | Oct. 6 | TB 7, NYY 5 | Watch |
| Gm 3 | Oct. 7 | TB 8, NYY 4 | Watch |
| Gm 4 | Oct. 8 | NYY 5, TB 1 | Watch |
| Gm 5 | Oct. 9 | TB 2, NYY 1 | Watch |
Shop for postseason gear: Then Stanton, in his first game for the Yankees, hit two out against the Blue Jays. People really did start believing this was going to be the long ball re-imagining of Maris and Mantle and 1961, when that duo combined for 115 home runs.
Stanton did fine in his first season in New York, with 38 homers. But Judge missed 50 games with injuries and only ended up with 27 long balls. Then Judge missed 60 more games in 2019. He hit 27 more homers. But Stanton only played 18 games for the Yankees last season and hit three home runs. Then here came the short season of the Summer of 2020, and they were both back on the injured list again, combining to play just 51 games before the bell rang for baseball’s first Wild Card Series.
But now they are healthy, and you see what the Yankees look like when they are. Judge hit his second home run of this postseason to put the Yankees ahead of the Rays, 4-3, on Monday night in San Diego. Then, in the top of the 9th, Stanton blew the doors off Game 1 of this AL Division Series with a grand slam. The two of them have now combined for five home runs in the three postseason games their team has played.
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The Yankees have scored 31 runs in those three games, and they have looked like the team everybody thought they would be back on the night of July 23 -- Opening Night in baseball -- when Stanton hit one out of sight against Max Scherzer.
Big guys. Big flies. Big things happening in this postseason, at least so far, for the New York Yankees, who also got home runs in San Diego from Clint Frazier and Kyle Higashioka, and enough of a start from Gerrit Cole, and fine bullpen work from Chad Green and Zack Britton when the game was still close.
“We’re a scary team,” Judge said.
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Not only does All Rise Judge now have 10 home runs in his first 30 postseason games, the Yankees are 7-3 in games when he has hit a home run. His first home run of this postseason came in his first at-bat, top of the first, last Tuesday night in Game 1 of the Yankees’ Wild Card Series against the Indians. It came off Shane Bieber, who’s going to win the Cy Young Award for this season.
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On Monday night, Judge’s home run put the Yankees’ ahead of the Rays, 4-3. That one came off Blake Snell, who was the American League Cy Young Award winner in 2018.
By the way, Judge only has two hits in the three postseason games the Yankees have played so far. But both are home runs. Both felt like early-round haymakers. Then it was left for Stanton to finish the job in the ninth, when the kid who grew up outside of Los Angeles tried to hit one there -- first October grand slam by a DH in the history of the Yankees -- and extended the New York lead from 5-3 to 9-3, and good night, and good luck.
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You wondered coming into this postseason if there might be two hitters who would do for their team what Anthony Rendon and Juan Soto did for the Nationals a year ago. So far, in a small sample, it looks as if those two guys might be the big guys from the Yankees.
“I can’t really put it past it’s Southern California,” Stanton said when it was over. “I grew up an hour and half, two hours away. I always had family and friends here.”
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For now, Yankees fans aren’t talking about the length of Stanton’s contract, or the size of the original contract he’d signed with the Marlins ($325 million over 13 years). They aren’t talking about how he couldn’t stay on the field last season and then couldn’t stay on the field this season, how he hit those three homers in 18 games last season and just four in the 23 games he played this time, out of his team’s 60. They are just watching him hit home runs.
Stanton is 6-foot-6. Judge is 6-foot-7. They look as if they could match up with the front line of the Lakers. Still a long way to go, of course, including against the Rays. The Yankees still have to show they can get enough pitching when Cole doesn’t have the ball. Rendon and Soto had Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg last October.
Still: The Yankees have now hit 11 home runs in three postseason games. Five from the power forwards. Through those three games, their team is bigger than your team.